AbstractHistoryArchive Description

Most of the twelve stories in the collection are narrated by the small Indian girl, Nimmie, who weaves together the sometimes happy, sometimes sad, strands of a mixed Moslem and Hindu Indian-Australian home community in near physical isolation from city or town life.

Notes

Acknowledgments: These stories were first published in the Bulletin, with the exception of 'The Babu from Bengal' and 'A Long Way', which first appeared in Quadrant and Hemisphere respectively.

Other formats: Also braille, sound recording.

Contents

* Contents derived from the Sydney,New South Wales,:Angus and Robertson,1965 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.

* Contents derived from the North Ryde,Ryde - Gladesville - Hunters Hill area,Northwest Sydney,Sydney,New South Wales,:Sirius Books,1989 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.

Series:Pacific BooksAngus and Robertson
(publisher),
1961series - publisher AbstractThe establishment of this paperback imprint of Angus Robertson was spearheaded by Beatrice Davis. It started with print runs of 20,000 in 1961 (Paper Empires: History of Book in Australia, 18).This paperback series, published by Angus and Robertson, contains both numbered and unnumbered volumes.

Works about this Work

Beyond Home and into the World : Family in the Short Stories of the South Asian Diaspora in AustraliaAmit Sarwal,
2014single work criticism — Appears in:
Antipodes,Decembervol.
28no.
22014;(p. 379-391)Abstract'The family, as the primary unit of society, has been of great interest for sociologists and anthropologists. They have been interested in the structure of the family, the norms, experiences, anxieties, ideology, values, and rules that govern it along with the roles played by different members to achieve its complex equilibrium. Family and home are crucial sites for South Asian immigrants in Australia, as it provides them an anchoring–roots for socializing, teaching children inherited cultural values, structuring roles, and domestic divisions. Here, Sarwal examines migration of families and the carrying over of socio-cultural structures that are presented in the works of short story writers of South Asian diaspora in Australia. He emphasizes the ways in which the family experience of migrating and integrating into Australia from the Indian subcontinent has affected the immigrants' choices in life.' (Publication summary)

Australian Sunlight, Indian Shadows : 'The Time of the Peacock'Malati Mathur,
2013single work criticism — Appears in:
Bridging Imaginations : South Asian Diaspora in Australia2013;(p. 312-322)AbstractMathur writes: 'In their attempt to represent themselves and give voice to their ideas and feelings, Asian-Australian writers are turning the traditional image of the 'other' created by white Australian writers on its head. Their writing not only revises and subverts the hitherto white representation of mainstream writing but also is a way of writing back, a challenging of the stereotypical portrayal of Asians in mainstream literature. By doing this, Asian-Australian writers have inverted the gaze. By looking at themselves, asserting their own point of view, they are changing what had once been passive (object) into an active agent of change and speech (the subject)' (p. 316). The author goes on to demonstrate this through Mena Abdullah and Ray Mathew's In the Time of the Peacock.

The Asian Conspiracy : Deploying Voice/Deploying StoryMerlinda Bobis,
2010single work criticism — Appears in:
Australian Literary Studies,Octobervol.
25no.
32010;(p. 1-19)Abstract'This essay develops on the premise of imagining, which is the heart of story-making: imagine the physicality of story. Imagine the deployment strategies, the covert 'translations' of difference' that facilitate the entry of the Other story through the gate. And once inside, imagine how this Otherness is legitimised, packaged and consumed within the Australian nation.' (p. 3)

Beyond the Centre and Margin : Representations of Australia in South Asian Immigrant WritingsVera Alexander,
2007single work criticism — Appears in:
Australia : Making Space Meaningful2007;(p. 154-173)Abstract'Displacement leads to a high sensitivity to space and its potential to affect constructions of identity. Immigrants are continually confronted with the questions of who belongs to a country and who a country belongs to. In this paper I examine representations of Australia in two novels by writers of South Asian origin resident in Australia, Yasmine Gooneratne's A Change of Skies (1991) and Adib Khan's Seasonal Adjustments (1994). In doing so, I argue for a transcultural reading of Australia's position as an ambivalent diasporic location: white, Anglophone, but situated outside the 'western' centre.' (Author's abstract p. 154)

The Asian Conspiracy : Deploying Voice/Deploying StoryMerlinda Bobis,
2010single work criticism — Appears in:
Australian Literary Studies,Octobervol.
25no.
32010;(p. 1-19)Abstract'This essay develops on the premise of imagining, which is the heart of story-making: imagine the physicality of story. Imagine the deployment strategies, the covert 'translations' of difference' that facilitate the entry of the Other story through the gate. And once inside, imagine how this Otherness is legitimised, packaged and consumed within the Australian nation.' (p. 3)

Beyond the Centre and Margin : Representations of Australia in South Asian Immigrant WritingsVera Alexander,
2007single work criticism — Appears in:
Australia : Making Space Meaningful2007;(p. 154-173)Abstract'Displacement leads to a high sensitivity to space and its potential to affect constructions of identity. Immigrants are continually confronted with the questions of who belongs to a country and who a country belongs to. In this paper I examine representations of Australia in two novels by writers of South Asian origin resident in Australia, Yasmine Gooneratne's A Change of Skies (1991) and Adib Khan's Seasonal Adjustments (1994). In doing so, I argue for a transcultural reading of Australia's position as an ambivalent diasporic location: white, Anglophone, but situated outside the 'western' centre.' (Author's abstract p. 154)

Australian Sunlight, Indian Shadows : 'The Time of the Peacock'Malati Mathur,
2013single work criticism — Appears in:
Bridging Imaginations : South Asian Diaspora in Australia2013;(p. 312-322)AbstractMathur writes: 'In their attempt to represent themselves and give voice to their ideas and feelings, Asian-Australian writers are turning the traditional image of the 'other' created by white Australian writers on its head. Their writing not only revises and subverts the hitherto white representation of mainstream writing but also is a way of writing back, a challenging of the stereotypical portrayal of Asians in mainstream literature. By doing this, Asian-Australian writers have inverted the gaze. By looking at themselves, asserting their own point of view, they are changing what had once been passive (object) into an active agent of change and speech (the subject)' (p. 316). The author goes on to demonstrate this through Mena Abdullah and Ray Mathew's In the Time of the Peacock.